Thursday, October 16, 2008

American Idiots

I'm sure some clever conservative will point out that this is from Al-Jazeera and so therefore it is biased, but what cannot be denied or deflected is that these are the people who are attending the McCain-Palin rallies and voting Republican: the misinformed, the bigoted, the religious zealots and elderly people stuck in the distant past--- in other words, pretty much the same as the Republican candidates.

At some point I'll write a longer post about the pointless, stupid, expensive and disastrous Canadian election, but for now let me just address a few choice comments to a small group of voters in a single riding.

Look, I know you probably got a phone call from some robot urging you to get out and vote for the NDP candidate and I know some people are stubborn about strategic voting and don't like to vote for the lesser of two evils and all that, but seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? It isn't like noonenoticed that your candidate dropped out of the race, it was kind of in the newspapers and on the TV and all over the internet and stuff. Even if you really, really, really loved Jack Layton and the NDP and couldn't bring yourself to vote strategically for the Liberals, couldn't you just stay home instead of parading your jaw-dropping stupidity in public by voting for a non-existent candidate. If you thought this was some kind of clever protest vote, well I hope your sense of righteous indignation keeps you warm on cold winter nights in the fall out shelter after your returning MP manages to cause a nuclear explosion in the Alberta Tar Sands, or some other stroke of brilliance.

On the bright side, by falling for it you have at least brought to light Gary Lunn's dirty tricks, but it wasn't like we didn't already know he was an asshole.

Thanks to you, that asshole is now heading back to Ottawa to continue to do pretty much the opposite of what the NDP would to see done, and you sent him there.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Quote of the day

"I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. "

Sunday, October 12, 2008

When it comes to a financial meltdown, after dire predictions from economists governments around the world scramble to cooperate, the G7 calls emergency meetings, the doors to various national treasuries are flung open. The attitude among politicians and pundits by and large is "Do something! Costs to the taxpayers be dammed, we must solve this problem before it get worse, no matter what it takes.The government tells you about different ways to save money to whether the crisis Times are hard and we all have to pull together!" Handing over $700 billion with little or no oversight is something that must be done.

When it comes to global warming on the other hand, after 25 years of studies and dire predictions from scientists, there are still many politicians, bonehead and corporate lackies who claim the whole thing is a matter of opinion and the best thing to do is burn more coal and oil and drive your SUV to the corner store. Equiping factories with antipollution gear and forcing the auto industry to build more hybrids would be socialism and would cost too much.

When it comes to genocide in Darfur, thousands are dying, but it might be too expensive to divest or to pay some bills for the African Union or send some of our own soldiers. Besides, Sudan has some oil and you never know when that might come in handy.

The government of the United States is willing to fork over $700 billion in one fell swoop to the very people who lead the finanacial industry into disaser, but when experts say it might cost as much aas $150 billion to bring unversal health care to the country, all we hear about is "personal responsibility" and "fiscal restraint."